Redefining Our Version of Success by @TeacherToolkit

Redefining Our
Version of Success
by Ross M. McGill

Ross McGill
● Deputy Headteacher
● Blogger
● Author / Speaker
● Teacher Trainer

Share your thoughts ...
#TLCONF17
@TeacherToolkit

1. To support and reduce workload.
2. To challenge external factors.
3. To inspire you to make one change …
Objectives:

Effective teachers
‘notice everything’.

Effective teachers
‘know everything’.

Effective teachers ‘know the difference between a
reason and an excuse’.

Effective teachers ‘have
high levels of energy’.

Effective teachers
‘take NO nonsense’!

Effective teachers ‘work hard’.

Effective teachers ‘are
comfortable with the
awkward squad’.

A few rhetorical and
provocative questions ...

How do we know if
OfSTED are correct?

Are OfSTED a partial cause
for the recruitment crisis?

What do
● schools
● headteachers / teachers
● students / parents
gain from school inspections?

Why do schools
celebrate OfSTED inspections?

Don’t Do This …
#OfSTEDBannersSchool gates

Do this ...
Staff: ”The school supports
my professional development
so that I can be a better
teacher.”
Ex-Student: ”My time at the
school was fantastic. The
school helped me achieve and I
am now training to be …”
Student: “I feel safe and
happy because teachers
listen. I am supported to be
the best I can be …”
#OfSTEDBannersImages: Shutterstock

How many teachers leave a
school after an OfSTED inspection?

Is the OfSTED framework is applicable
(fair) for all types of schools?

Does OfSTED ignore
school complaints?

You can complain about the process,
but not about the judgement.

Not a single school
succeeded in challenging
their overall judgement last year!
(TES article 9th June 2017)
Image: Shutterstock

Why do school inspectors still ask
school leaders to produce documents
on the day of an inspection?

Should OfSTED reports be written
on school premises?

20 Years of Educational Fads
Learning
Styles
Lesson Objectives Learning
Outcomes
Rapid
Progress
Assessing
Pupil
Progress
Chinese Teaching Personal Learning
Thinking Skills
Textbooks iPads Sitting in Rows
Group
Work
Zero
Tolerance
Brain
Gym
Four-part
Lessons
Lolly-pop
Sticks
Teacher Talk Detailed Lesson
Plans
Verbal
Feedback
Stamps
Triple
Marking
Starters,
Middles
and
Plenaries
www.TeacherToolkit.co.uk/Education-Fads

With transparency
comes accountability ...

We are facing significant funding cuts:
can a school survive on their own?

Why is MAT allocation by the
DfE (largely) an opaque process?

What criteria do the DfE use
when selecting ‘preferred partners’?

Is a MAT takeover
genuinely a consultation?

Start thinking …
What is the one ‘workload’
issue you would change
within yourself?

The Life of a
Deputy Headteacher
(9 blogs)

Musings over the past 6 months ...

Do external agencies
underestimate how hard it is
to work in a challenging school?

Would you work in a school
if it placed your career at risk?

Is there anything negative about
working in an inclusive school?

Should we treat SEN
students with zero-tolerance too?

10 Ways To
Demotivate Teachers

1. Timetabling
2. Well-being inititatives
3. Data
4. Calendar
5. Poor behaviour
6. Meetings
7. Deadlines
8. Working for OfSTED
9. Public conversations
10. Lesson gradings

DfE Workload Survey
*DfE report 2017
Type / Year 2013 2015 2017
Primary 50.2 hours pw 59.3 hours pw 55.5 hours pw
Secondary 49.9 55.7 55.3
Primary SLT 56.1 60.2 59.8
Secondary SLT 57.3 63.3 62.1
Does it feel
any better?

Workload Challenge: Analysis of teacher consultation responses
44,000 responses:
• 63% stated excessive level of detail made tasks burdensome
• 45% stated that duplication added to burden of workload
• 41% stated that over-bureaucratic nature of the work

One page
summary ...
February 2015

2 years later,
we have a poster!
March 2017

Define: routinely
The problem?

MER cycle:
Monitoring
Evaluation
Review.
To steady workflow
and workload …

Forget this! -> Feedback Stamps!

Teaching and
Learning Policy
Consistency
and/or
Compliance?

Marking:
1. Teachers must have a secure overview of the starting
points, progress and context of all students.
2. Marking must be primarily formative including use of
a yellow box which is clear about what students must
act upon and selective marking, where relevant.
3. Marking and feedback must be regular
4. The marking code must be used.

A reminder ...
How do you inspectors evaluate verbal feedback?

If a teaching and learning policy
is non-statutory, why have one?

Probably the best
teaching and learning policy
in the world ...

Think - Pair - Share
Name a ‘workload’
issue you want to
change?
a) school
b) you
Image: www.everydayfeminism.com

How many
● looked for Wi-Fi as soon as you arrived?!
● connected ‘back to school’?

Take your phone out and place it on the table ...
1. How many apps connect you to work/workload?
2. Delete one app right now …
3. Leave it!

This is bad: it is controlling you!

How often do you?
1. ... send/answer emails after 6pm?
2. ... send/receive a Friday night headache?
3. … turn it off?
4. … use a work mobile phone?

Email analysis
Nov 2016
Weekends
End of month
Do people want less
later in the month?

1. Receiving more than I’m sending …
2. More emails after 4pm
3. I’m still replying into the night !

1. I don’t read/reply as much on a Monday!
2. I send 2-4 emails on Sat/Sun
3. Friday is my email response day.
4. Sending 18+ per day.

1. 10 words in x50 emails!
2. Quick answers or quick corridor conversations?
3. Send less words than I receive ...

5 Email Protocol Tips for Schools
1. Checking Email:
Staff should only check email when they are not teaching. Is this possible?
2. Sending/Replying to Email:
No email should be sent between the hours of 7:30PM and 7AM.
3. ‘All Staff’ Emails:
Only the PA to the Principal has the ability to email ‘All Staff’.
4. Server:
The school network to only ‘push/fetch’ between periods of the day.
5. Forwarding and Bcc:
Do you need to reply and just say ‘thank you’?

“If you do NOT design your (work) life,
someone else will design it for you …”
Nigel Marsh

Why do we think that teachers
who arrive early and leave
the latest, are working
the hardest?

What is your:
● personal workload challenge?
● school’s workload challenge?

Steven Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
= Urgent / Important Matrix

Grab …
1. A pen
2. Scrap A4 paper
Photo credit: www.sk-eternalsapience.blogspot.com

Photo credit: www.mediabistro.com

Think - Pair - Share
● Identify 3-5 common issues …
● You cannot identify ‘time’ as a problem.
What is the cause?

What is the one ‘workload’ issue you
would change within yourself?
Image: www.huffingtonpost.com
Don’t forget …

As a deputy headteacher …
1. … in one week, I spend 15+ hours in meetings!
2. On average 25% instead of with students / staff.
3. Only 6.5 of these hours are after-school hours.

Suggestions:
1. Have a strong chair - clear actions / who
2. No devices? No paper?
3. Rotate the venue / chair
4. 30 minutes - info. and 30 mins- doing things
5. Feed staff after a long day
6. Google docs / collaborate / work in pairs.

Lesson Planning.
Workload Review Group - March 2016
1. Undue time spent on planning/resources
2. Distinguish between planning vs. daily planning
3. Box-ticking leads to workload
4. Evaluate effectiveness of planning
5. Lead-in time for changes to the sector.
6. Use of textbooks - do not reinvent the wheel
7. No silver bullet resources

Marking.
1. Marking - what to do next?
2. Written feedback has become disproportionate.
3. Quantity should not be confused with quality.
4. Marking does not make you a good teacher.
5. Shrink the importance of marking.
6. Ineffective dialogue between T/Ss
7. No one-size-fits-all.
8. Meaningful, manageable, motivating.

Data.
1. Data with impact.
2. Collection: an end in itself.
3. Clear purpose / efficient process
4. What is the data for?
5. Collect once - use many times
6. Collect to support outcomes for children.
7. Don’t continue just because it’s normal ...
8. How long it will take vs. time spent elsewhere?

Why is ‘part-time’ a
dirty word in education?

Positives Negatives
● Balance ● Timetabling
● Family ● A perceived distraction ...
● Other pursuits ● Same deadlines
● Very organised! ● After-school clubs
● Works to the second ... ● Lack of job-share opportunity
● Retention ● Senior leadership?!!!
● (ACAS) 72% positive impact ● Middle leadership?!
● Loyalty ●
● Improve mental health. ●

Is Work-Life
Balance A Fallacy?

Marking
is
broken!
Credit: @MrLockyer (concept) / Photo credit http://bushtherapy.com

Should we demand that verbal
feedback has a higher priority?

Why is it assumed that written feedback
is the best form of feedback?

The whistle blows!
It’s nearing the end of the match. The players are tired.
The coach calls for a time-out.
The team hustles round, kneeling in anticipation and a confused look comes
over their faces. The coach is writing down what he’d like to say.
“I’m almost done!” he shouts, “This is going to be great!”.
The whistle blows and the time-out is over. The team, bewildered by their
coach’s odd behaviour, makes its way back onto the pitch. They haven’t
been given the information in time.

… the other team rallies and scores again. It’s a devastating loss.
Back in the changing room, the weary, dejected players find a note with
‘Feedback’ written on it. The team captain opens it up.
It was the strategy to win the game.
Frustrated, they question the coach about his behaviour.
“Keep calm,” he says. “We can work on it tomorrow.”
The team, understandably annoyed, tell the coach that they needed to
know right away, not the next day.
Jeremy Hannay

Objectives:
1. To reduce the quantity of written feedback.
2. To challenge the myth that written feedback is the most valuable.
3. To dispel the myth feedback must be evidenced in a book to ‘count’
towards a) progress b) evidence etc.

Data collection so far ...
NOR No. of schools
60 - 450 32
451 - 850 34
851 - 1,350 16
1,351 - 1,750 11
1,751 - 2,250 3
2,251 - 3,000 0
3,001- 3,500 1
1. Ranges from 60 to 3,500, with
most NOR at the low end.
2. The median is 640.
3. Possible impact on 75,000
students.

Timeline:
● Expression of interest (May 2017)
● Confirmation of study (July 2017)
● Resources shared / required (September 2017)
● Window 1 (October - November 2017)
● Publication (December 2017)
● Window 1 (January - March 2018)
● Publication (April 2018)
● Conclusions (May 2018)
● Submission to Department for Education (estimated June 2018)

www.TeacherToolkit.co.uk/Verbal-Feedback-Research
Sign up? #TTkitResearch

Feedback … who?
What is the one ‘workload’ issue you would
change in yourself?
Image: www.everydayfeminism.com

Despite research, and according to union
polls, approximately 45-50% of schools still
grade individual lessons and teachers.
Does yours?

Do you use a
Qualitative or Quantitative
model for assessment of teaching?

1 teacher = 800 hours of teaching
Just 3 observations!
Some schools still do this ...

Learning Walks
with NO feedback?

Coaching consideration:
1. Banish lesson gradings forever.
2. … then STOP the traditional 3 lessons per year.
3. No more formal observations. Ever!
4. Allow every teacher to receive coaching.
5. Identify staff to be coaches.

6. Allocate funding.
7. Allocate time: 1 period pw (15 min / 30 min)
8. No paperwork. Optional log book.
9. Rigorous training for coach.
10. Relationships outside of appraisal.

11. Across departments, levels, roles.
12. Specific framework. A common vernacular ...
13. The cycle would repeat every week.
14. The coaching would be for 2 terms.
15. Voluntary … let appraisal take care of itself.

£100 / 5 lessons = £20
£20 x 1 lesson a week
38 lessons = £760

£760 per teacher per year
X25 teaching staff on M2+

For 50 teachers
… assuming x40 teachers are M3-UPS3
NQT: £27,819 (Inner London) = x10
MPS6: £37,862 (Inner London) = x25
UPS1: £42,756 (Inner London) x15

M2 = £760 p.w. for x10 = £7,600
MPS6 = £1,124 p.w. for x25 = £27,550
UPS1 = £1,254 p.w. for x15 = £18,810
The costs

Consult on removing the separate graded
judgments on quality of T&L

If we remove assessing the quality of
teaching and learning in inspections?
We place more focus on data ...

1. OfSTED create the recruitment crisis
2. We should stop celebrating the machine
3. Transparency leads to accountability
4. Don’t do things you don’t have to ...
5. Disconnect before it becomes expected
6. We need more part-time teachers
7. Verbal feedback should become the norm
8. Stop grading teachers
9. Coaching should be the default for development
10. Work-life balance is a fallacy.

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Disclaimer
This presentation was created by Ross Morrison McGill as a formal
presentation to be given publicly. It is not to be published elsewhere.
Thank you for reading this resource!
You can find others here.
This presentation by Ross Morrison McGill is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License,
based on all work published at www.TeacherToolkit.co.uk and @TeacherToolkit Limited.

Barak Rosenshine, emeritus professor
College of Education University of Illinois
“Principles of Instruction (2012)”

The 17 principles of effective teaching:
1. Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning
2. Present new material in small steps with student practice after each step
3. Limit the amount of material students receive at one time
4. Give clear and detailed instructions and explanations
5. Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students
6. Provide a high level of active practice for all students.
7. Guide students as they begin to practice
8. Think aloud and model steps ...

The 17 principles of effective teaching:
9. Provide models of worked-out problems
10. Ask students to explain what they have learned.
11. Check the responses of all students
12. Provide systematic feedback and corrections
13. Use more time to provide explanations
14. Provide many examples
15. Reteach materials when necessary
16. Prepare students for independent practice
17. Monitor students when the begin independent practice.

Redefining Our Version of Success by @TeacherToolkit

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